Goodbye Sarkad

And we're back...

UPDATE --

1. I think almost everyone knows by now but, just in case, Meliss and I have decided to stay on for another year here in Hungary. It's been an amazing experience -- at times frustrating and challenging, but never boring. Oh, and if you run into our parents give them a big hug from us (unless they don't know you, then you should probably introduce yourself first otherwise that would be kind of weird). 

2. We just booked our flight to Rome in mid-March. Really looking forward to that...also probably heading to Barcelona or Prague in April, we haven't decided which yet (life is tough).

3. We attended a pig killing a few weeks ago and it was incredible. We drank palinka and had fresh pig's blood for breakfast. Yes, Melissa ate the pig's blood. We can't use a lot of the pics for the blog because the family asked us not to since it's now illegal to host a pig killing (but everyone does it anyway as we've been told). We'll be able to put a few of them on later though.

Ok, on to the blog ---

We've been in our new flat for about a month and a half now but we have a few things left from Sarkad that we wanted to add. We were told that Sarkad held a flea/farmer's market type thing every Sunday.  After a few weeks of living there (and already seeing pretty much everything else) we decided to try to find it. 

We left the flat at around 8 AM with a vague notion of where this thing was being held -- but since we rarely have anything more than a vague notion of where anything is we felt pretty comfortable about finding it.

We walked for about a half hour and ended up in the right place but soon realized it was the wrong time. This thing starts at 6 AM and ends at 9 AM so most of the vendors were packing up but there were still a few odds and ends remaining.

Dish towels and tools (we bought some dish towels)

More stuff that somebody might find useful -- not us

And the torture table

We thought this was for sale until we saw the lady sleeping in the back of it

We bought dish towels and some fresh paprika. Actually it was more than some -- it was a lot. I am still using it now in February. We came back a few weeks later at 6 AM thinking there would be more to this -- but there wasn't. So, that was that for the Sarkad flea market.

We had one other curiosity to explore though. Any time we left Sarkad to go anywhere the bus would drive by this 24 hour fruit market place -- but with camels walking around off to the side. So, we had to check that out. Meliss got up one Saturday afternoon (that hasn't changed) and said we were going...and that we should walk. We figured it would be about a half hour or so to get there. 

It was not a half hour...

But we finally made it -- an hour later

Why this has to be 24 hours I do not know. Emergency fruit/veggie situation I guess.

It was just a normal market from what we could tell, then we walked thru to the back

Once thru the marketplace, we ended up in this weird zoo/car show type place. We still don't quite understand what was all going on here...but it was worth the walk.

Just past Black Swan Pond was this garage full of what look to be really expensive cars.
I know "tilos" means "forbidden" so we didn't go any closer
By the way, that is how Hungarians write their "p's" -- 5th letter in the first word. 

and the other side...

Beyond the auto show were just a bunch of different pens with random animals in them. 

A few peacocks...

A family of cattle, I think -- not much of an outdoorsman -- could be oxen I suppose
Plus, it's just fun to say oxen

What was a little less fun was when this guy followed us for awhile -- not that I don't think the fence wouldn't have kept him in check. Melissa was really nervous when she realized that a) she was wearing red and b) I'm faster than she is. Turned out he just had to go to the bathroom.

Li'l Ponies (Li'l Sebastian for any Parks and Rec fans!!)

Llamas or Alpacas...I don't know what the difference is, is there one?
I know Llamas spit so I tried to get Melissa to upset him/her -- but to no avail.

It was feeding time when we were there and the guy threw a bunch of straw/hay down for the llamas and said a bunch of Hungarian. Somewhere in there, I know I heard him call one of them "Tina."

The show stopper for us, though were the camels. It's kind of an inside joke (Colten, you know what I'm talking about!) but if you ever have the opportunity to drive from St. Louis to Cape Girardieu, and if you look really close, somewhere along the way is a camel. It's just grazing there behind a fence on the side of the road. Every time we go I tell Meliss to look at it and she always says it's a fake. She seriously thought it was a stuffed camel. 

Now, I know mid-Missourians may have a lot of time on their hands but it seemed a stretch to me that they would continually re-pose a stuffed camel that often. Anyway, eventually she saw it moving and had to admit that I was right.  It was a glorious, glorious day. So, of course, when we rolled into Sarkad the first day and saw some camels walking around it was a lot of fun for me to be able to relive that story.

It is alternately revolting and relaxing to watch a camel chew.
God, I love camels...what majestic creatures!!
Oh, in the background --
Zoldseg (zooldshayg) = vegetables
Gyumolcs (Dyumoolch) = Fruit

With the fun over, we headed back to town.

We really enjoyed Sarkad for what it was -- a small farm town on the border of Romania. There wasn't much in the town, but what there was, was close. The flat was huge, the bus stop was across the street, the people were nice. And for all the warnings, no gypsy attacks.

Here are some random other pics from our time in Sarkad.

Foggy Lake Eden

And don't forget the horse carts!!!

We totally would've ridden in this one but rarely saw it.
I think one of my students owns it so maybe for Melissa's birthday!

Also, when the weather began turning cold we had to figure out how to turn our heat on without blowing up the flat.

We spent about an hour deciding on our escape route first, then couldn't get it to light. So, I just took this picture into the school to get some advice.

Yay! We have heat!!
We also had a bunch of creepy crawly things coming out of it.

So that about closes the book on Sarkad. We'll have some more when we get to talk about the actual teaching part of this whole adventure, but up next is our trip to Gyula castle.